My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate - a life and a role that she has never questioned… until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister - and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable… a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life… even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? ~from the author

Podcast

Listen to podcast of My Sister's Keeper

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Azar Nafisi’s memoir of life and book groups after the Iranian revolution may be a huge bestseller in the United States, but it has yet to be translated into Persian. As a result, almost no Iranians have even heard of the book. Fewer still have read it. Ever since the 1979 revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power, Western culture and literature has become wholly reviled in Iran and especially forbidden for women to explore. However, that did not stop Azar Nafisi from gathering a small group of women to her home every Thursday to lead a discussion group on such banned Western classics as Pride and Prejudice and Lolita. ~barnes and noble review

Interview with Author

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffeneggger

The Time Traveler’s Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare's marriage and their passionate love for each other, as the story unfolds from both points of view. Clare and Henry attempt to live normal lives, pursuing familiar goals -- steady jobs, good friends, children of their own. All of this is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control, making their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable. ~barnes and noble review

The Time Traveler's Wife Trailer 2009 movie

Emma by Jan Austen

Of all Jane Austen's heroines, Emma Woodhouse is the most flawed, the most infuriating, and, in the end, the most endearing. The title character, Emma Woodhouse, is queen of her little community. She is lovely and wealthy. Se has no mother; her fussy, fragile father imposes no curbs on either her behavior or her self-satisfaction. Everyone else in the village is deferentially lower in social standing. Only Mr. Knightley, an old family friend, ever suggests she needs improvement.  Emma has a taste for matchmaking. When she meets pretty Harriet Smith, "the natural daughter of somebody," Emma takes her up as both a friend and a cause. Emma has a taste for matchmaking. Uninterested in marriage at the book's beginning, she happily engages herself to Mr. Knightly before its end. ~amazon review

“It is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do." - Jane Austen, (London 1816)

Jane Austen (1775-1817) is considered by many scholars to be the first great woman novelist. Her novels revolve around people, not events or coincidences. Miss Austen sets her novels in the upper middle class English country which was her own environment.  Her novels have increased in stature over time. Her skills of writing, including a dry humor and a witty elegance of expression have attracted generations to her work.  Jane Austen began to write Emma in January of 1814 and finished it a little over a year later, in March of 1815. At the time of completion, Austen was thirty-nine years old. Emma was published at the end of 1815, with 2,000 copies being printed—563, more than a quarter, were still unsold after four years. She earned less than forty pounds from the book during her lifetime, though it earned more after her death. Austen died a year and a half after publication. ~review

Jane Austen Quotes

"I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal." -- letter of December 24, 1798

“I have read [Byron's] The Corsair, mended my petticoat, and have nothing else to do." -- letter of March 5, 1814

"I... do not think the worse of him for having a brain so very different from mine. …-- letter of March 23, 1817